Would people be willing to download a 250 MB island addon, two 56 MB unit addons and maybe a couple others to play some realistic WWII Eastern Front missions? Is that amount of size too much to ask? What do you think?

After playing around with Vilas WWII addon in ArmA, I've discovered what feels like a new and better game. The Red Army & Wehrmacht guns have been rendered substantially less accurate and rapid firing than the AI's in the modern Armed Assault--- so infantry battles last longer and are more realistic, and more importantly, more fun! I've been frustrated with some of the AI issues in ArmA and I think one of the biggest ones is the ability of the AI to spot and shoot you instantly from a mile away. That doesn't happen with Vilas's addon and its very fun (and a bit of a challenge, as the bad guys get much closer, your own weapon is less accurate, and grenades become more of an issue).

So i was thinking of making some WWII missions using Vilas's work and some other addons (listed below). However, they are all very large, and I'm not sure how many people would feel comfortable downloading that many addons. I was thinking of making a few simple missions (nothing as big as Punishment Battalion) based on Stalingrad/Kharkov (Sled88's Winter Island addon makes the Paraiso desert and scrub kind of like rolling steppe with some trees) I wanted to ask around a bit before i put a lot of work into these... If I don't hear from anyone i'll assume I should save myself the effort

I would download these addons because they would radically transfer ArmA`s look and feel. I think due to the popularity of WWII and many people having a broadband internet, you would find many "customers".

Great! Thanks Mathias & Denz!! Now I am motivated, though its gonna take some time.

I'm a big history fan myself too Denz, especially Eastern Front! Just got done reading Liddell Hart's "The German Generals Talk." Good stuff. Any particular scenarios of interest? For the first mission i was thinking of a 1944 running defense scenario for the German player. The player has to decide when and where to stand and fight against waves of Red Army troops, and where to post troops before the inevitable bombardment (close to the front or back a bit the way the Germans did later on to save their men). I could also flip the same mission with the player as the Red Army and he has to guess where to bombard and where to attack. To get it out faster I'm not gonna do as many cutscenes and voiceovers as Punishment Battalion (is that going ok so far Denz?) and try to emphasize randomization and replayability. The western edge of Paraiso in the Winter Island has some snow covered forest and steppe as long as you stay away from the main towns and water. Anyway, thanks gentlemen, I'm gonna have some fun creating these.

I'll have to add the basic Vilas file as well to the list of final addons for any mission.

The D-30 works well as an AT gun for both sides, though it does heavy damage to infantry as well (maybe too much?). So basically the KingTiger, T-34 (when they are available), Stug, and D-30. I might have to get sounds of Stuka's and then just use bombs falling from the sky to simulate that. But all in all these missions shouldn't be too hard to create and the weapon inaccuracy really improves the gameplay.

I have to add that it is very refreshing to play as a German or Soviet grunt. I am sooo done with the "American Airborne vs. evil Nazis on D-Day" scenario! Maybe you don`t need the Stuka, because as fas as I know they were very vulnerable without fighter protection and I don`t think the Luftwaffe had any kind of air superiority in late 1944. But then you are the history buff and know more about the Eastern Front for sure....

Sounds good to make a WW2 mission based on the Russian front, though I'm more the history guy about the western front so far.

These days most people have broadband connections so it shouldn't be a problem for many, after all every addon/island is huge. Does anyone know what that is about, why are all the addons and especially islands so large in ArmA compared to OFP? Does it have to to with the streaming technology etc.?

@Mathias- good point, probably not too many Stukas in 1944. And I'm very much done with Call of Duty style scripted arcade warfare too. The Eastern Front is fascinating as the battle between two brutal empires for dominance of Europe. It plays more on ArmA/OFP strengths too for tactical decisions and large battles only partially in the player's control.

@Wolfrug- yeh sounds would be awesome! At the moment i'm going to enlist my cast of friends from Punishment Battalion to do voiceovers (not as many this time) but those American accents won't sound too authentic

@Cheetah- I don't know why Winter Island is so large, its basically just Paraiso in snow. Which is pretty cool just need to strip out the palm trees. A plants PBO was included but i did not insert it because it overwrote the original plants.pbo and i'm worried i'd lose the palm trees forever. have to sort that one out and i guess keep the other plants backed up somewhere (400 mB though).

Sketch of the first mission (hopefully replayable as either side, Red Army grunt or Captain, or German army private or Captain):

1944: German troops in full retreat across frozen Russian steppe. Rearguard troops managed to lay a minefield with a gap for the Wehrmacht to pass through before the Red Army tidal wave arrives. German commander player has to decide which of three possible belts of defense to occupy before the inevitable bombardment and then play an elastic defense as long as possible. I'm going to try and use as much randomization as possible to make the game replayable and somewhat different every time, and a bit unpredictable.

Basically the German player gets a score based on:

1) how long he holds off the Russians before retreating off map (map being a certain area on Winter Island)2) how many Russians he takes down before going off map3) and how many Germans he loses

So no matter what the German player must withdraw, counterattack, withdraw etc but ultimately must know when to really cut his losses and escape. Casualties above a certain level and withdraw before a certain time would represent a failure.

If the player decides to play as a Red Army grunt or commander he must:

1) Get to the objectives in the shortest amount of time possible with the Germans cleared out of the area2) minimize losses (but not at the expense of time)3) use the infamous Punishment Battalions to be the first wave

So that's what I have so far. Feel free to mention any suggestions/criticisms

I should be done with this simple WWII eastern front mission within a couple weeks. Here a few betatest snapshots of German troops fighting in Winter Sahrani (I will probably use the CWR Winter Kolgujev in the future as well, considering many will or have already downloaded that map mod). This mission does not have all the storyline, cutscenes and voiceovers as Punishment Battalion but will be a simple replayable Eastern Front battle.

I've tried to add quite a few randomized events to make the mission different everytime, and I'm open to suggestions for more (once the framework is done its easy to add events). There are Stuka attacks, reinforcements (or not) on both sides, and even a 50% chance the Fuhrer intervenes and orders your unit to fight to the death, negating all other objectives. The spirit and tactics of the mission are loosely based on General Raus's elastic defense against overwhelming odds in Pomerania, January 1945.

The player's score is increased by destroying Red Army forces, preserving Wehrmacht forces and maximizing time spent on map before retreat, so no matter what the player "loses", he just tries to lose "the least" as Raus did in real life...

Oh, a Captain in the Wehrmacht is a Hauptmann and in the Waffen SS it's Hauptsturmfuhrer.If you want historical accuracy. Although there were a lot of non-germans in both arms so you really could use anything.

Looking forward to it.

edit:Here's a link for Wehrmacht ranksI'll try to find something similar for the SS

Ostfront 1945 by Lee Hunt (To other Moderators: I published this here in mission discussion because i am seeking input on additional mission features and waiting for future addons, and due to the mission's file size and what not I don't feel its ready for the mass public, but if you disagree and want to move it I understand)

Overview:Fight a rearguard battle against overwhelming Red Army forces.

I did not include Sled88's plants.pbo file that looked like it would copy over the plants.pbo included in the game. That seemed like a dangerous file to copy over and it was not required for the winter landscape (though if you go out of the mission zone you may some find some snowy palm trees ). Thus I created my own filefront links for the exact addons needed rather than have players downloaded hundreds of MB of unnecessary files.

Features:Vilas WWII addon of Red Army and Wehrmacht infantry (no tanks yet, waiting on other addon makers to complete works in progress) Firefights have significantly reduced accuracy for all infantry weapons-- which arguably makes the battle more realistic from a WWII point of view.

Sled88's Winter Island transforms the Sahrani desert into the Eastern European winter landscape

-Insert the SaraLite.PBO map into your ArmA\Addons folder.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Thanks to Vilas and Sled88 for addons and to ofpec and Mandoble for wisdom, scripts etc (Mando Mortar included ).

Note for players:

This simple mission is very open to "bolt-on" ideas from the community-- if you de-PBO Ostfront you can see this layout in init.sqs. I have included various random events that make the mission slightly different each time for each player, however I am open to suggestions on new "random events" besides the Fuhrer & SS ones and hidden Russian events etc. Also when the tank addons are complete I will add those. I'd love to hear your ideas Unfortunately my regular PC is being shipped back to Alienware for repairs, so it'll be a month or so before I can make lots of changes.

Wooh! 149 MB package! Gotta love that. I hope you make more WW2 missions using the same addons so we get more bang out of our buck Heck, if you've got a nice bunch of addons in there, maybe I'll make a mission or two even...sadly there are far too few WW2 addons out yet

I like the extensive Briefing and the three phaselines you provided, as well as the mortar support. The feeling of the mission itself was much different than my expectations. The defense line B (which I selected) was quite bare, just 2 AT guns, no fortifications and the bright orange Urals did not help immersion. Could you use the military green ones?Soviet infantry did not come in waves, but only small groups which much lull of activity in between. No offence meant, but to me it felt more like battling some bands of insurgents and not the mighty Red Army. Somehow I miss the MG42s that were so importand to the Germans.

The reason for me not able to complete the mission was that I reached critical losses rather fast (at 32-35 % levels), with little cover (just the trucks) available, and not enough tools to cause the horrendous losses the Red Army suffered in WWII.

Enough of words, I illustrate what I expected with a little "editor-thrown-together" thing.

But great to see that you kept the motivaton for completing this mission!

Great, one niggle though you didn't include a link to just the mission. I can't be bothered to download a package for addons I already have. I did find it on filefront - I take it it's the same version.edit:link removed

Thanks for testing it out. Its definitely in a "feedback" stage so thank you, glad to get a first WWII mission out there and the ball rolling on this historical era for ArmA.

-I wasn't sure how hard to make it (you can never tell as the designer because you "know" where the bad guys are. So i can make it much harder with more waves of russians. The MG42's are in your unit, there are a few.

-I wasn't sure what truck to use, but i will take your advice and change that.

-I was not sure how much defenses to have at each line, i will add more and add more Russians. Part of the reason for not too many objects is i am waiting on the tanks. Originally i wanted to have the player as a panzer tank commander in a tank battle in the rolling hills area.

Did you use the Stukas, or have the Fuhrer intervene or the SS troops etc? Those are some random events. Check out init.sqs. Any other ideas for things you would like to see Mathias?

I must admit that I just tried the mission a bit, so no I encountered no random events (hit the critical losses even on the first defence line), maybe it would be better to raise the critical losses mark up to 50%.

Just a random thought: A mission on North Sahrani in winter conditions could realistically do without tanks due to hilly terrain. Maybe pitting some Gebirgsjäger in the Caucasus or Austria/Bavaria against the Russians? Not that your mission is not good and worth further development, just had this quick idea for another WWII mission....

Thanks, i do like the idea of using North Sahrani. I really just want to get this mission format out there- i wanted to make something decently fun and playable and then get feedback, so don't worry about criticizing. I can't make better stuff without the feedback .

-Did the critical losses stop the mission or did you get killed? DId you manage to retreat off map?

When my PC comes back i'll be able to juice up this mission with more Russians etc and play around with a winter forest one on North Sahrani.

ok Mathias- you've just woken me up to another point-- i have it set so that when you are killed the same screen runs as when you retreat off map. So when the mission "stopped" you'd almost certainly been killed and the camera cut straight to the results summary. more to fix

This topic has at least three post with different addons listed, if would be good if it is stated clear that all the addons listed in the very first post are the very and only ones needed to test anything.

This looks appealing. I'm a war Buff as well and this endeavor has potential of spawning many fans. The Eastern front was a war which was decided by weather and timing and could perhaps be the deciding factor in many missions. Logistics were essential to german warfare across such widespread territory of unknown terrain. I could see frostbite scripts which effect the aim and health of even the elite soldiers if they are not taken care of properly. I see the destruction of supply chains being the focus over complete elimination. The aerial bombing of ships of russian reinforcements affecting the outcome as well. Great cities of rubble being the center of urban bloodshed and perhaps a drawn out battle between two elite snipers as they struggle to hunt each other down. Cold scripts which effect the armor and introduce functioning percentages for all metallic equipment. Ration kits in addition to first aid kits to prevent starvation. Perhaps an additional command added to all squad leaders via radio that he must remember to tap off periodically to keep the moral of his men high and thus their performance. Too bad their are no decent working trains for the game as that would expand the number of possibilities as well. Sad to hear the cutback of cinematics though, but I understand, is it hard to get German and Russian accented speakers?